Upon Whom the Ends of the Ages Have Come

Donald Robinson, Graeme Goldsworthy’s theological mentor:

“Jesus is Himself the End.

There is nothing revealed to us in the purposes of God which does not have its fulfilment in Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 1:20).

All that the Old Testament believers looked forward to in the day of the Lord finds its realization in Jesus: the passover (1 Cor. 5:7), the exodus (Luke 9:31), the covenant (Matt. 26:28), the law (John 13:34; Rom. 10:4), the tabernacle (John 1:14), the bread from heaven (John 6:35), Canaan (1 Pet. 1:4; Heb. 11:16), David (John 1:49), Jerusalem (Heb. 12:22; Rev. 21:10-14), the Temple (John 2:21; Acts 15:16).

But Jesus not only concludes and fulfils the historical experience of old Israel; He fulfils also the more ancient history of creation. He is the last Adam (1 Cor. 15:45), the firstborn of all creation (Col. 1:15), who has already received the glory and dominion with which it was God’s purpose to endow man (Heb. 2:5-9).

The End has therefore come in Jesus Christ.  . . . There is nothing whatever of all God’s purposes of salvation which has not been fulfilled in Him.

–D. W. B. Robinson, The Hope of Christ’s Coming (London: Falcon, 1960), 13-14

(HT: Dane Ortlund)